children meeting house guests

[dottypotter]

Is it me or is it bad manners if you visit someone for an evening and their kids dont come out of their bedrooms to say hello.

when i was younger if my parents had their friends round we went and said hello if only for a few minutes.

I have a friend who if she has an evening do or something the kids dont appear they are in their rooms!

Other people’s children are best neither seen nor heard IMO.

That really isn't a nice attitude. I wouldn't want to have a friend who never wanted to see my DDs. I don't expect friends to be gushing all over them (DD2 in particular would hate that). My DDs live here as much as DH and I do, why should I pretend they don't exist?

I have a childfree friend who really isn't all that fond of children but she's always happy to chat with my DDs for a few minutes before she and I go for some adult time at a restaurant together.

FWIW, I'm not exactly all that good at relating to other people's children, but I wouldn't ever think I shouldn't have to put up with them being there, as I'm in their home.

Nah, everyone gets introduced, everyone gets friendly. That’s the rule in the house of Pearls

I've got a question.

I absolutely agree that if a DC's friend is visiting, they should say hello to at least one parent. That's basic manners.

But should any siblings have to come out of their rooms & greet the friend?

I'd probably assume my DD (15) would say hello if she walked past. If she knows them. If she doesn't know them I'd introduce them to each other, but I wouldn't expect her to stay and chat. I wouldn't expect her to come downstairs especially, though. On the other hand if she wanted to join in, I'd make sure she felt welcome and included. It's up to her really.

Empress, even I draw the line at that one. In fact, I would positively discourage it, given my warring tribe. They seem to wind one another up even more if one of them has a friend over and the others don't...

Doesn’t it depend on the age of the children? Mine are tiddlers so would be asleep by the time a normal adult dinner party would start. In that scenario I wouldn’t be keeping them awake especially as that would mean then doing bedtime routine when I want to socialise with our guests... as it is most of our friends meet us in the day as they want to see and spend time with our children at a sensible time for doing so.

Bit more ambivalent about older kids, my parents stopped encouraging me and DB to come and say hello to dinner guests when they realised we liked it a bit too much and if we came down they could never get rid of us...

Well I like my friends kids and want to build a relationship with them so I’m always happy to see them. But that doesn’t mean I would want them to join us for the evening, mainly because our language and conversation topics are often 18+

I like to think my friends like my kids too.

My parents had a couple of friends who made me feel like they liked and valued me as a person (even as a child) and I’ve never forgotten how nice that felt. As I grew older they were people I could talk to, confide in etc. I hope that I can do similar with my friends kids.

I’d be cross with my husband if he didn’t pop his head in and say hello if I had my girlfriends or book club friends over so why different for my kids?

If my kids were still up and awake, a quick hello is nice. But they are very sociable and want to. Perhaps when they become horrid sulky teenagers they won’t want to but I’ll ask them to anyway.

I wouldn’t be offended if someone’s children didn’t come and say hello, but I’d like to think that they know they are welcome too.

I agree with most.
It's you.
It's not rude.

If any of my dc are downstairs / passing the living room or wherever we are, then they would stick their heads round the door and say hello, but they wouldn't be called down by me because someone was in the house to see dh or I.
If anyone were close enough to be coming round for a meal, then they (my dc) would be eating too if they were at home, so they'd obviously come down. If they (the visitors) were here for a meeting or something though, it would depend on if they (the dc) were passing through. No visitor who is here to visit either dh or I needs a parade of our dc, and of course I wouldn't expect them to parade their dc for me. What an odd concept.

If I'm at my parents' house and they have guests I'd rather not say hello to I still hide. I'm 38 and have two children of my own. Why do I have to talk to their guests? YABVU